liyue surname headcanons
originally scribbled 9 november 2021.
…(mostly)
i wanted to give ganyu n keqing surnames for this one au i was working on n ended up coming up w/surnames for the rest of the cast ahaha.
this table is organized in traditional chinese dictionary order. i double-checked with a physical dictionary, mostly because i wanted practice using one of those.
| 中文 | pinyin | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 卯香菱 | mao xiangling | canon surname |
| 張白術 | zhang baizhu | idk it sounded right. also thought the idea of him naming changsheng to sound similar to his own last name was funny. |
| 文行秋 | wen xingqiu | might be a little on the nose (since 'wen' can mean literature), but it sounds nice to me |
| 方瑤瑤 | fang yaoyao | at the time, i thought that yaoyao was affiliated w/bubu pharmacy for some reason, so i chose fang as a play on 藥房 ( yào fàng - pharmacy). |
| 李夜蘭 | li yelan | i don't actually like the way this one sounds all that much, but the interesting reason makes up for that. basically the philosopher lao tzu had the courtesy name boyang, and is the exact same name as yelan's ancestor who got trapped in the chasm, boyang. lao tzu's surname was 李/li. this is also neither here nor there, but i watched cardcaptor sakura recently and did a double take when i learned that syaoran's mother is also named 李夜蘭 lol. |
| 林歸終 | lin guizhong | probably a bit strange to make the god of dust's family name 'forest' but i like the way it sounds. |
| 柳閑雲 | liu xianyun | since her adeptus name is 留雲借風 [liuyun jiefeng], i wanted her name to be pronounced 'liu'. i chose 柳, 'willow', over 劉, which, while a common surname i doubt anyone would bat an eye at, is apparently a classical word for a type of battleaxe. |
| 江北斗 | jiang beidou | can't explain why i like this one so much aside from "she LOOKS like a jiang to me, okay??" although, i guess the contrast btwn 江/jiang (river) and 海/hai (sea) could also be cited |
| 王鐘離 | wang zhongli | wouldn't it be so funny if he was literally running around with the surname "king", which also happens to be one of The Most Common surnames out there, thus facilitating his blending in w/the people? |
| 田凝光 | tian ningguang | this tian is different from the tian of tianquan (天權), which means 'sky' (vs. this 田 meaning rice field), but the fact that they sound identical is still a good draw to me. plus, i wouldn't be surprised if her parents were farmers bc they grew up poor, so i felt it was apt. |
| 胡桃 | hu tao | canon surname |
| 花申鶴 | hua shenhe | chongyun n shenhe are canonically relatives, so it's possible they have the same surname. however, since they are related on chongyun's mother's side, she would probably have a diff surname instead, unless their clan is matrilineal. |
| 花重雲 | hua chongyun | comes from chonghua clan sort of thing, even though i'm pretty sure that hua is 化 (hùa meaning 'change'), vs. this hūa meaning 'flower'. perhaps 華 (húa, abbreviation for china meaning 'flowery' or 'splendid') might have been more appropriate |
| 范辛焱 | fan xinyan | she was one of the last i picked a surname for, the other contender being 哈/ha. 'fan' looked cuter in the context of her whole name |
| 葉嘉明 | yip gaaming | canon surname. |
| 陳刻晴 | chen keqing | the name that started it all: 'chen' doesn't rlly mean anything on its own; i picked it bc i was just kind of obsessed w/the way it sounds |
| 雲堇 | yun jin | canon surname. if i were to pretend otherwise, i'd have given her 皦/jiăo, which means sparkling n bright. |
| 馮甘雨 | feng ganyu | i liked that it combines the ice radical 冰 with the horse radical 馬. at the same time, the phrase '久旱逢甘雨' (jĭu hàn féng gānyŭ), while written w/a different feng, means 'to satisfy a long-felt need'. |
| 黃煙緋 | huang yanfei | i like the idea of her clients calling her "ms. huang". it just sounds nice to me. also smth smth huang (yellow) being the imperial color + yanfei being half adeptus idk. |
footnotes
qiqi n xiao aren't on this chart bc qiqi would just have the same surname as baizhu (張), n xiao, if he had a surname, would probably share it w/zhongli (王).